After a while the white man lifted his head and slowly raised his arms
in a gesture of attention, as one who would call a great crowd to
hear--but there was no crowd, only the vast silence of the mountain
and the sky, broken by faint bird voices down among the trees. The
figure on the saddle of rock began to speak ponderously and with an
inextinguishable pride.
"You--out there---!" he cried in a trembling voice.
"You--there-----!" He paused, his arms still uplifted, his head held
attentively as though he were expecting an answer. John strained his
eyes to see whether there might be men coming down the mountain, but
the mountain was bare of human life. There was only sky and a mocking
flute of wind along the treetops. Could Washington be praying? For a
moment John wondered. Then the illusion passed--there was something in
the man's whole attitude antithetical to prayer.
"Oh, you above there!"
The voice was become strong and confident. This was no forlorn
supplication. If anything, there was in it a quality of monstrous
condescension.
"You there---" Words, too quickly uttered to be understood, flowing
one into the other .... John listened breathlessly, catching a phrase
here and there, while the voice broke off, resumed, broke off
again--now strong and argumentative, now coloured with a slow, puzzled
impatience, Then a conviction commenced to dawn on the single
listener, and as realisation crept over him a spray of quick blood
rushed through his arteries.
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